


love the likes of which you can scarcely imagine

by thewayofthetrashcompactor (BriarLily)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Dathomir (Star Wars), F/M, Inspired by Frankenstein, Necromancy, Nightsisters (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Resurrection, Rey Needs A Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:20:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23134552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BriarLily/pseuds/thewayofthetrashcompactor
Summary: After the other half of her dyad disappears, Rey decides she's done with letting the Force take the things she loves away from her. There's more to the galaxy than the Jedi and the Sith, and Rey isn't going to let anything get in the way of having her bond to Ben restored.“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37
Collections: Reylo Hidden Gems, Reylo Theme Event





	love the likes of which you can scarcely imagine

**Author's Note:**

> If you're squeamish, please check the tags for this one, or check the end notes for full warnings with spoilers! It gets a little weird and gross. 
> 
> Title is from another Frankenstein quote: “I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

Rey blows out a frustrated breath, trying to push a damp strand of hair back from her eyes. Her arms are coated in grease, blood, and other fluids she doesn’t really want to think about, up to her elbows. Streaks trail up to her shoulders and across her cheeks, and the same substances soak the ragged robe she wears. Her fingers tremble as she works on her row of stitches, the needle nearly slipping out of her fingers. Both it and the thick black thread she uses are slick with fluid as well; she soaked the thread in bacta in hopes that it will heal the seams once she finishes. 

She reaches the end of the seam and lets out a shaky sigh before tying off the end of the thread and cutting it. She’d considered creating something mechanical at first. Engines and ships are her speciality, not… this. But she wants more than a droid. She already has those, and it’s not enough. Besides, the magic she’s been teaching herself from the ruins of the Nightsisters’ home here on Dathomir was never intended for mechanical forms. Everything she’s learned is about living forms and how the Force affects them. 

She regards the creation on the work table in front of her. It’s not elegant. She’s no Maker, and this shows the signs of her inexperience. Instead of the satisfaction she thought she’d feel at completing the task she’s poured herself into for the past several months, she’s overcome by a paralyzing wave of fear. What if this doesn’t work? What if it was all for nothing? She’s come so far, done so many things she never even considered before Exegol. What if he really is --?

Rey braces herself on the table. No. He can’t be. She can _feel_ him. Not like she used to, but he’s there, on the other end of their bond, all the time. It haunts her, how close he feels and yet so out of reach. She can’t count how many times she’s reached out across their connection, feeling like he should be waiting at the end of it, ready to reach back to her. Instead her efforts stretch into a vast emptiness, chasing after the echo of him still clinging to her soul. 

Worse are the times when it seems like the bond has opened, and she can feel his hand on her shoulder or his lips on her hair. She tries to touch him, to catch him and keep him close to her, but the ghost of sensation disappears before she can capture it. She’s left with her fingertips tingling with memory. 

She’s seen other ghosts: Luke, Leia, older Jedi she doesn’t recognize. They don’t speak to her like they did once, but it still feels like the Force is taunting her with what she can’t have. And she’s sick of being used by the Force and letting it take everything away from her. This is one victory it will not hold on to. 

She exhales slowly and stands straight again. She fought her way to this place, digging through old records to find the kind of information she needed. She spent months piecing together the fragments left behind by the witches, counting herself lucky that most people feared the place too much to try to loot it. Even then, the Nightsisters didn’t write down their secrets for anyone to read. She experimented with the Force and various potions, forgetting to sleep and eat long enough that she nearly passed out more than once. She can’t even be sure how long she’d been on Dathomir. She brought a com with the ship, but she hasn’t bothered checking either of them for… weeks. Maybe longer. 

The journey to perfecting the methods she’d need to carry out her plan had been long and bloody. She fought her way through several of the beasts that roam the planet before getting everything she needed. Her new lightsaber staff has proven itself many times over. She defeated nydak, chirodactyl, even a rancor. It turns out that creatures run big on Dathomir, another reason the planet receives few visitors. Not many people are as desperate as her. The size of her prey means her creation has turned out slightly larger than she’d planned, but it will have to do. 

Rey walks out to the end of the cavern and looks at the sky overhead. The moons are beginning to rise, casting silvery light through the red fog that sits low over the swamps. Her heart races. Everything is ready, and she has no reason to delay. The longer she waits, the less likely this is to work. She has to do it tonight. She turns and faces the cavern.

Each step that takes her back to the table brings more of the weight of her decision onto her. There are so many things that can go wrong, and she doesn’t know what she’ll do if she’s come this far only to lose everything again. To make it through each day, she’s had to convince herself that there was still hope, just like she’s done for so many years, but this could be the last chance. 

She lines up the ingredients she’s set out at the head of the table. One last look down the form in front of her, and she gathers herself to start the ritual. The various powders and liquids pour together into the vessel she prepared, swirling into a concoction that turns a bright, glowing green. Matching smoke billows out across the room. Rey inhales, and the acrid smell of the potion spears into her mind. She stiffens, and everything seems to fit into place. She knows what she has to do.

Taking the cup between her hands, she starts chanting the words she’d practiced, the witches’ chant falling from her lips as easily as if she’d been born speaking it. She walks around the table to the head of her creation. Every step echoes in the tall cavern, and her voice gains volume and strength. Other voices echo in the Force, women speaking the same language as her, their accents shaping each word with the precision of a knife. Her heart beats in time with the chant, pounding against the cage of her chest. She draws the Force into her, containing it, seducing it to her will. 

She stops above the head and looks down. The creature’s eyes are closed, its lips parted. This would be the moment for any of her last minute doubts, but instead she feels more assured than she has since Exegol. This is right. The Force will serve her, and this is what she wants. Still chanting, she tips the cup to the creature’s mouth, pouring the potion down its throat. The echoes of the Nightsisters rise around her, their voices overlapping until it's all she can hear. Her eyes close and she follows the potion with the Force bottled inside her, every thought focused on one purpose. She reaches out across the remnants of her bond and _pulls_ , putting everything she has into that connection.

_Ben_ , she calls, and the Force resonates with his name.

_Be with me._

Rey stands as the conduit between her bondmate and the form she’s created for him, pouring everything she has of him through herself and _down_ , into the body. The now-empty cup falls with a thud from the table to the ground as her hands grip the face beneath her, fingers settling over its cheeks and around the jaw. Her palms burn with cold fire, and she feels the rush of energy passing through her. Even with her eyes closed, she can see the body under her hands glowing with the sickly green blaze of the Nightsisters magic, lit with her own power in the Force.

She draws in a breath, and it’s like breathing in the Force itself. She breathes out, slowly, and with that gesture sends the last of the magic she’s gathered out through her hands. When her lungs empty, everything goes dark at once. Her palms suddenly feel like they’ve been frozen in ice, and she nearly pulls back from the shock. She maintains the contact, drawing another shallow breath before she opens her eyes. 

The torches she’d lit earlier have gone out, but the pale light of the moons reaches into the cavern, sliding along the floor and across the table. With the shadows, she can’t tell if the body on the table looks any different than it had before. It doesn’t move. She reaches out, but the roiling nature of the Force in the cavern doesn’t feel any different.

Her next breath comes out as a shudder. She failed, it wasn’t enough, all of this and it still wasn’t enough. She lost him and --

Under her hands, the jaw relaxes, settling into a more natural position in the face. Her heart stops, and her eyes stare down, desperate for any sign of life.

Eyes blink open and she gasps. “Ben?” she asks, hardly daring to hear the answer. All of the worst case scenarios that had slipped away from her during the ritual come roaring back. She could have captured the essence of any of the other powerful Force users that cling to this place. She could have captured only a memory of him, if his spirit really had passed out of this life completely. She could have created a monster, something fueled only by her own emotions and connection to the Force.

Whatever’s in the body takes its first breath. She holds her own, waiting for some sign. The eyes blink again, reflecting slightly green in the dim light as they adjust. Most creatures on Dathomir have some level of night vision to survive. For a moment she has the feeling of being evaluated by a predator and her hand nearly flies to her lightsaber but then --

The chin tilts up at an angle she recognizes, even if the features are different, and the slightly wider lips pull in an expression she’s only ever seen on one man. The eyes squint as they focus on her. 

“Rey?” the creature says, voice deeper and scratchier than she remembers, but she feels the connection of him calling her name a way she thought she never would again.

She can feel him in the Force now, his signature reaching for hers across the bond, familiar and yet… not. Something new touches him now, a hint of the magic she’d used to bring him back, that green thread wrapped around his soul. A piece of her is there too. She doesn’t know what that means yet, but the rest is unmistakably _him_. Tears well up in her eyes before she can stop them. 

His eyes widen, and his hands fumble on the table to push himself up. His legs swing over the side as he turns to face her, reaching out to cup her face in one large, partially-scaled hand. His skin presses slightly cool and rough against her face. She covers his hand with hers, tears now streaming down her cheeks. More thoughts than she can keep up with race across her mind, but the only one that matters is that she can feel Ben with her again. Their bond no longer feels like an ache in her soul; her other half is reaching out to her through the Force, easing the pain she’s carried since he left. 

Ben leans in, and then their overlapped hands catch the moonlight and he freezes. He moves his fingers and she sees in his misshapen face as he realizes that the inhuman clawed hand belongs to him. He breathes in again, and she watches as he becomes aware of the lumbering form he now inhabits. He was tall before, but this creature stands several inches taller, and somehow even broader. The bones are heavier and the skin is mottled with scales and patches of green, orange, and brown. She’d done her best with the face, spent the longest on it, but even with her best efforts, she could never recreate the features she loved so much. The face that looks at her now still has a strong brow and nose, but the angles of the cheeks and jaw sit different, and there’s no denying that this wasn’t a creature born to human parents. 

His hand falls from her face and he stares at it where it lands on the table. When his eyes finally climb back to hers, emotion she doesn’t recognize fills their luminescent depths. 

“What happened?” he rasps. A hiss edges the words. 

She swallows, and the weight of her choices hit her full force. 

_What has she done?_

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS WITH SPOILERS:  
> Rey creates a body for Ben out of nonhuman creatures and uses Nightsister magic to transfer him into it. Ben hasn't been able to contact her and doesn't know what she's doing.   
> \---
> 
> (I have ideas for a chapter or two of follow up to this one (including some fluff), but I can't promise I'll get to it soon!)
> 
> Comments always appreciated! I know this one's a little more out there than usual, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. 
> 
> You can also find me on [pillowfort as thelastjedi](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/906830), [tumblr as thewayofthetrashcompactor](https://thewayofthetrashcompactor.tumblr.com/post/188963992628/read-on-ao3-finally-posted-the-last-chapter-of-my), and [twitter as briartrash](https://twitter.com/briartrash/status/1193685084697743360?s=20)


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